Safaricom to rollout educational tv programmes

Wednesday February 17 2016

M-Kopa Chief Executive Officer Jesse Moore (left) and sales Support Manager Njeri Gikami (centre) explain to a customer how the home solar system functions, in Nairobi on January 14, 2016. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

M-KOPA, sells solar kits on credit that is paid for via MPESA on a day to day basis thereby enabling more Kenyans to afford the solar kit and the television kit.

The full kit worth Sh44,000 comprises of a solar panel, three solar bulbs, energy converter and a battery as well as a multi-socket unit allowing a user to charge their phones, watch four hours of uninterrupted television while using their radio all the time.

Safaricom has announced plans to roll out educational television programmes that will be run on local Kenyan television soon.

Safaricom Chief Executive Mr Bob Collymore said that programme preparations were going on so as to enhance educational content available on Kenyan television.

The Telco CEO spoke when he launched Kenya’s first Solar powered digital flat TV at M-KOPA House in Kilimani Wednesday.

M-KOPA, an off-grid energy provider said that their 300,000 customers who have benefitted from the sale of solar kits had expressed interest in the digital television set forcing them to seek a solution to fill in the demand arising from mainly rural based clients.

Mr Collymore welcomed the solar tv saying it was a much needed innovation that had helped answer the needs of many Kenyans who had been marginalised by last year’s digital migration that saw thousands of television sets switched off when the government ordered the start of digital transmission and an end to analogue migration.

ASSEMBLED IN KENYA

M-KOPA, sells solar kits on credit that is paid for via MPESA on a day to day basis thereby enabling more Kenyans to afford the solar kit and the television kit.

M-KOPA Solar chief executive Mr Jesse Moore said the TV that is locally assembled in Kenya and its parts sourced from China was an answer to their recent research that showed a majority of Kenyans living in rural areas had been locked out after the digital migration due to lack of electricity and money to buy a TV set with its decoder.

The full kit worth Sh44,000 comprises of a solar panel, three solar bulbs, energy converter and a battery as well as a multi-socket unit allowing a user to charge their phones, watch four hours of uninterrupted television while using their radio all the time.

Mr Moore said that according to a survey conducted by Kenya Audience Research Foundation, a paltry 31 per cent of the adult population have access to television programmes while the rest grope in the dark due to unavailability of energy or ability to buy a television set.

He said that the pay-as-you-go model enabled poor families to substitute the money spent on buying Kerosene thereby enabling them to use the savings to pay for the kit.